Different Rush
by blank-fic
Summary: For my kink bingo "electricity" square. Asexual and aromantic Spike sort-of solo-kink fic.


This is my very first flashpoint fic, having just started watching the show a few days ago. I hope it works. I think it sort of works. Tell me if it works!

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><p><p>

Spike can't say when exactly he first knew that he was so different from other boys, from other people. Thinking back, he remembers the radios of his childhood and the computers of his adolescence, and he remembers the rush of pleasure at his firsts- from his first radio, to the first computer he built with his own hands, to Babycakes. He thinks of learning soldering and the first time he set an electric fire in his workroom in the garage and realized that -he could control- something so magical as electricity, that he could make so many new things out of it.

He remembers those things like he remembers dates, and he remembers every loss like a relationship torn from him. Spike remembers being 15 and having his best friend ask him which of the girls at school he liked, and making up a lie because he didn't want to say that none of them meant a thing to him.

He remembers being 17 the first time a girl asks him out. Elena-from-physics corners him halfway through the school year and smiles at him just so, he knows that it is coming before she speaks, and can't figure out how to evade her without hurting her feelings. He had said yes because he thought that was what he was supposed to do, and maybe he doesn't believe that anymore, but some days he feels like he's back in high school having to hide himself again.

One day it just breaks; it had to. They're having after-work beers, the rest of the team having already gone home or out with someone special, when Greg asks him if he's seeing anyone yet. It would seem like inarticulate drunken questioning if Spike didn't know better. "No, Boss." Spike responds, praying that Greg will drop the matter.

Greg peers at him with one of his best calming-the-situation looks, and Spike knows he wont be able to resist answering even though he knows every single one of his methods. "You haven't been close to anyone since Lou." Greg says.

Spike just nods his head, opening up his second beer. "No, I haven't."

"You have to move on," Greg says. "You weren't romantically involved with Lou, I know that you would never jeopardize your spot on the team with that kind of behavior. What is it, then?"

Spike shrugs, and decides that he might as well come clean. "Lou liked to learn from me, liked what I did... and that's what I like, too." Spike pauses, considering how to word it. "I -_really like- _what we do, like Ed loves Sophia, or like Sam swoons over Jules. Lou just... he didn't have a problem with that. I didn't treat him like he was stupid no matter where he came from. I think I was the first person to give a shit about teaching him any kind of science, anyways. Maybe he liked it a little, too."

"So people like Sam or Jules don't interest you, but things like Babycakes do?" Greg asks, genuinely curious and wondering if he should be concerned for a member of his team's already tested sanity.

Spike nods. "Yeah. Building Babycakes, or any of the toys our team uses... or diffusing the most technically advanced bombs we see, but not so much the last one anymore after Lou. I like giving life to things that aren't alive, I like the way I relate to machines, I like the fact that -I- power the things I build... I know they're not people, but... it never occurred to me to be aroused by things that are people."

"Has it always been this way?" Greg asks, and Spike knows he's trying to ask if Spike's always been this way or if this was some new deviation on his part.

"Yeah. I realized it by high school."

Greg thinks. "I don't have a problem with that, Spike, but I do have a problem with you being alone all the time when you're off work. May I propose something?"

Spike nods. "Sure, Boss."

"We're off duty now, you don't need to call me that. I know I can never be Lou, and I can never be what he was for you, but I'd love for you to spend some time teaching me. Let me watch you work, explain what you do. I promise I wont touch or break anything, and that I wont judge you for what you say." Greg says.

Spike thinks. "You know that I respect you... Greg, and I would be honored to have your company, but I don't need your pity."

Greg shakes his head. "You're a member of my team, and I listen to the relationship problems of every single person on this team. Their problems are bad dates, I didn't know that your problems are bad power supplies. But I do now, so I want to hear about that too."

Spike laughs. "When you put it that way..."

"You can't resist, I know." Greg says, and he's relieved. Spike's still hurting but he's not isolating himself from others because of Lou, he's still got what really matters to him. And it is odd and new to Greg, but he'll find a way to show Spike that he'll accept him and care for him as always.

Things don't really change. Greg and Spike spend two or three more hours a week together, mostly on days off. Greg learns to see the things he didn't before- the way Spike talks about Babycakes, the way he looks when he produces animation in objects for the first time, the way he closes his eyes for just a moment and breathes a little faster the first time Greg helps him assemble a server and doesn't break a thing, the way his pupils dilate when he runs his fingers along the power supply after he screws it in place, the way he almost melts with relief when it boots up properly.

Spike eventually tells the rest of the team, and they all get it to some level because they're all aroused by _something_- Sam all but cuddles his rifles to sleep, Kevin hacks cameras late at night when his daughters are asleep, and Jules knows that she likes this job way more than she could ever bring herself to like Sam; that she likes the rush of power to save human life more than she could ever like one single person.

It isn't the same, but they get it, and Spike isn't in high school anymore.


End file.
